The Waterworks

2631

Fred Lee — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:15:34 +0000

Disembodied. The ancients understood an individual without a community to be like a hand without a body. How creepy modern individuals would appear to them!

2630

Fred Lee — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 17:35:06 +0000

A little trick. An ambitious goal seems far less intimidating when put on a “to-do” list.

2629

Fred Lee — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 08:20:39 +0000

Polemicists speak not to persuade. Rather, they are making declarations of hostilities.

2628

Fred Lee — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:23:07 +0000

Others are farther apart than Opposites. For example, love is much closer to hate than it is to indifference.

2627

Fred Lee — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 09:02:15 +0000

Too much is said. All words are overused in a time of too much writing.

2626

Fred Lee — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 02:26:34 +0000

How misanthropic! They call ignorance, greed, and selfishness “vices.”

2625

Fred Lee — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 02:23:31 +0000

Don’t blame the drug. Far from making anyone anxious, THC only enhances those underlying anxieties that someone already experiences.

2624

Fred Lee — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:58:35 +0000

Plurality of unity. One great teaching spreads through an infinity of sectarian splits.

2623

Fred Lee — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 19:21:17 +0000

One dead sooner, another dead a little later. Socrates went to his death to prove a point, whereas Galileo negotiated to save his life: this is the choice between ethical truth versus value-free knowledge.

2622

Fred Lee — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:34:10 +0000

Constructive criticism. All comments (so long as they are incredibly flattering) and criticisms (so long as they are comments of the aforementioned kind) will be appreciated.

2621

Fred Lee — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:28:02 +0000

Monkey business. I am like Kafka’s ape—except I must learn to like bananas.

2620

Fred Lee — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:24:05 +0000

No regrets. Regarding those things we’d rather, but cannot forget, only reinterpretations can redeem our remembrances.

2619

Fred Lee — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:19:23 +0000

Neither/nor. Neither one, nor not one; neither many, nor not many; neither [neither one nor not one], nor [neither many, nor not many].

2618

Fred Lee — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:47:17 +0000

Asian, American, ironist. He judged submission to be too high a price for “choosing” to belong, yet recognized he had given up any claim to “natural” belonging. Assuming an attitude of aloofness, he preserved some small measure of self-respect—but a small one, at that.

2617

Fred Lee — Tue, 31 May 2011 19:28:44 +0000

I’m boycotting that café. I must prefer to be the most pretentious person in the coffee shop.

2616

Fred Lee — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:35:45 +0000

Seen from a position. It is so “natural” for those whom society places in higher positions to look down upon those whom society places in lower positions.

2615

Fred Lee — Mon, 23 May 2011 02:45:46 +0000

Rule of nobody. What some bureaucracies lack in size, they make up for in lack of speed.

2614

Fred Lee — Sat, 21 May 2011 17:19:13 +0000

Beyond words is silence. Fear of silence is a characteristically worldly anxiety; fear of being silenced is a characteristically political preoccupation.

2613

Fred Lee — Thu, 19 May 2011 19:40:16 +0000

Reflective passages, passing reflections. Each door is a mirror, and every mirror is a door.

2612

Fred Lee — Wed, 18 May 2011 17:05:07 +0000

Utopian liberals. Although thinkers of a high caliber, Hayek, Friedman, and Nozick must be dismissed along with Plato, the first amongst the utopian theoreticians.